


He Hath No Fury

by HeatedHeadwear (SplickedyHat)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dolorosa being Alternia's First Mommy, Family, Gen, Oneshot, in a thoroughly badass way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplickedyHat/pseuds/HeatedHeadwear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one will pass this threshold.  Not even the Grand Highblood himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Hath No Fury

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on Tumblr, with edits for posting on AO3. Somehow assumes that the GHB would come after the Dolorosa and Signless when the Signless was still very young.

They meet only twice. 

This is the first encounter:

00

The Dolorosa senses his approach before he appears. She feels the weight of his presence, the madness and the ringing in her ears that shakes like grating laughter.

She has met subjugglators before, but he is something entirely new. And he’s coming closer to their hiding place, this cave deep in a canyon. She had thought they were safe here. 

He’s coming closer.

He’s coming closer.

He’s coming closer and she can sense his mind and smell the ancient, crusted blood and she knows it’s only a matter of time. Thought escapes her. She’s sweating, her mind races—what to do, where to go, how to survive, no way out—

A hand tugs at her skirt and she gasps, whipping around to look down at—

her little boy, so recently pupated, whimpers softly. Reaches for her. 

And the harshwhimsical spell breaks. In its place is left only silence and the faint, soft stirrings of a very deep, powerful rage. As in a dream, she shooshes the little signless troll and divests herself of her green shawl. She wraps it around him, and then turns to the entrance of the cave.

No one will pass this threshold.

Not even the Grand Highblood himself.

00

Her knuckles are bleeding. Her dress is torn. One of her knees trembles unceasingly, spikes of pain shooting through her leg whenever she tries to steady it. 

The Dolorosa stands and fights on for her little boy. She aggresses first this time, one hand pulled back for a punch that might break it. She barely connects, and in the split-second following, a massive open-hand blow collides with her thorax. 

He is gangly for his size but still broader and bulkier than she, with the power of a highblood. The force would have sent her flying had she not clung to his wrist on instinct. Agony makes white lights explode in her eyes, but she reaches out blindly, wrenches one of his fingers back and feels it break

his howl seems to shatter the sky, words mixing into a cacophony like the cries of carrion birds and the mirth of a thousand murderers

and the Dolorosa sees things, horrifying spectacles that should make her curl up on the ground and sob, mentally crippled and unable to do anything but watch the visions become reality.

But the Grand Highblood has never fought a mother before.

He sent her visions of her boy lying dead, mangled, horribly changed, and expected anguish and terror. Instead, the quiet fury that had wavered within her explodes.

The Dolorosa surges forward with a wild scream of pure hatred and drives a knee between his legs; claws his cheek open with splayed fingers; sinks teeth like razors into his throatstem. Purple blood floods her mouth as they fall together, bubbles through his clenched teeth as he struggles for breath. His eyes pulse a frenzied red and yellow, but for a moment she has the upper hand. Panting, dizzy, the Dolorosa scrabbles for a weapon, anything. Her hand finds a large, jagged rock and one blow is enough to stun the Highblood. She thinks deliriously that she should kill him now, but before she can raise the stone again the high keening of his followers becomes audible, too close for comfort. Instantly, all priorities change. 

Assured of his death, the Dolorosa leaves her enemy twitching on the ground; takes her son; runs away again, as she always has.

00

(And so the Signless and his mother live, but the Grand Highblood survives too, and he remembers.

And upon their second meeting, she will watch her son burn.)


End file.
